The Richard Nixon Experience
It has been 50 years since the Administration of Richard Nixon. In that time, the left has waged a war on history to define Richard Nixon as a failure as President. For much of the half century Richard Nixon's name was synonymous with corruption and Government overreach. Podcasts, Documentaries, Cable Network specials have all controlled a narrative that cast Richard Nixon as the 20th centuries great American Villain.
But all of that has changed. First in 2013, Geoff Shepard, Richard Nixon's youngest Watergate Defense team member, petitioned the National Archives for access to sealed Watergate materials. What he found was a treasure of exculpatory material that has sent shock waves throughout the world of serious historians and legal scholars. Was there more to the story of Watergate? The documentation he exposed certainly seems to say so and that is not the only area where scholars are finding that there was way more to Richard Nixon's tenure than had ever been appreciated.
Richard Nixon worked to protect civil rights, advance women in government, protect the environment, set new higher standards for workforce safety, share revenues with local government, restructure the inner workings of the Federal Government, with plans to make it work more efficiently and more effectively and he even worked to provide a better healthcare and welfare system some 40 years ahead of his time. He opened up women's sports, lowered the voting age, ushered in an era of Judicial restraint, desegregated the Southern School system, poured millions into entrepreneurial programs for minorities, passed tough laws on organized crime, ended the draft and passed billions of dollars into cancer research that has led to most of the advances against the wide variety of deadly diseases we see today.
And that list does not even get into the Foreign Policy achievements we associate with his incredible five and a half years as President.
We thought it was time to tell that story and over the next year and half we will tell that story on this podcast. The story of the experience of a nation, at war in Vietnam, and often under siege, and at war with itself, here at home. An experience that created a great gash in the body politic that we are still healing from today. It is the story of the man who saved our Union from the growing disaster an upheaval experienced in this era.
The story of the experience of a nation as it wrestled with titanic changes in culture, the experience of a nation ripped from its foundations, and the experience of the historic leader that set that nation back on course to its rightful place as the beacon of light for freedom and prosperity to a troubled world . The experience of the late 1960's and early 1970's, the experience of the most divisive era in American history, other than the Civil War, the experience of the United States of America and the leader who fixed it all.
Welcome to "The Richard Nixon Experience" Podcast
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The Richard Nixon Experience
RICHARD NIXON 1973 Watergate (Part 10) An Evening at the White House for our POWs
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If our last episode was one of the saddest we will ever cover on our podcast, this was one of the happiest.
On May 24, 1973, underneath an enormous tent on the grounds of the White House, the largest state dinner and event ever held occured in honor of the Vietnam Prisoners of War. It was a star-studded event. Bob Hope hosted with guests the New Christy Minstrels, Phyllis Diller, Joey Harrington, Vic Damone, Edgar Bergman, Jimmy Stewart, Ricardo Montalban, Jimmy Stewart, Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys, Irving Berlin and the Legendary Actor John Wayne. All of whom played tribute to the soldiers of Vietnam.
The event was the visionary idea of one famous entertainer, Sammy Davis Jr. , and he will come on and sing a few songs including an incredibly moving moment with Irvin Berlin singing his song " God Bless America". It was a night like no other and when it was over we listen in on a call between President Richard Nixon and his new Chief of Staff, a former General and assistant National Security Advisor during the Vietnam War, Alexander Haig. In it they talk about the power of this night and how no matter what was to come, this night and the honoring of our now free, former POW's had made it all worth it.
The call ends with a very powerful moment between the two men as Al Haig ends the call with some powerful words for a discouraged President as Nixon steals himself for the horrible days he knows are sure to be coming at the hands of a rabid conglomeration of enemies.
On a side note, this is so far my favorite episode because it brings so many legendary figures into one episode honoring some of our greatest Americans and we get to see Richard Nixon at his best, in one of his finest hours, as one of our greatest American Leaders.
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